Nashville is out of gas - laugh

For some reason, Nashville is out of gas.

Click here and see a hilarious video about it.

Hard-wired and soft-wired differently

Warning: A phd student is about to talk about research methods and philosophy (potential for boredom is high). But it actually leads to something personal.

When it comes to taking a scientific approach to learning, one uses methods. There are two general categories of methods of research: quantitative and qualitative. There are also mixed methods, which in some way, are a hybrid of these two general categories of methods.

In science, your research question typically drives your method. If you want to know the correlation between levels of adolescent trust of the parent and levels of parent knowledge of adolescent daily activities, then you are going quantitative - think numbers with quantitative methods.

However, if you want to know about the lived experiences of adolescents disclosing sensitive things to their parents, then you are going to go with qualitative methods - think stories with qualitative methods.

These kinds of methods take VERY different kinds of thinking and analysis. With the quantitative (numbers) methods you need to know how to how to do statistics. With qualitative (stories) you need to know how to identify themes across the stories. OK, there is much more to it than that, but for now we'll leave it at that.

I believe I am hard-wired to know statistics. It is very hard for me, but it also makes sense once I get it. Statistics tell me lots of things and can show relationships. I like knowing how much? How much changed? Is it significant? etc.

However, there are some philosophical assumptions (or seductions) which come with quantitative methods. These assumptions have to do with truth. What is true for your sample is true everyone who is like your sample. With stats it is extremely tempting to the point of intexication at times to believe that when you get a result with statistical significance, you have learned something which is true. Here is where I fall apart. True for who? Under what conditions? For how long? What about the people who do not fit in the normal distribution of the study? What about people left out of the study? The claims of quantitative methods sometimes are the pinnacle of either arrogance of naivete.

With qualitative methods, you have different assumptions. These assumptions are more specific to the people you studied and there are no claims that the findings go beyond the study. The philosophy here is that there is local knowledge and that is important. There is more room for difference, creativity, and deep exploration with qualitative methods. Truth is not TRUTH, but truth...and even then is self-reflective. Qualitative methods can allow the researcher to locate herself in the study...hopefully a confession of sorts of bias (rather than a report of objectivity - something humans are incapable of achieving).

I am hardwired to do quantitative methods and softwired to do qualitative methods. This makes it very hard to be a student and researcher. It makes me want to do everything.

And I am learning that I cannot do everything...the hard way.

Creating Something

I have begun year three of doctoral studies in Family Social Science. This year has begun better than the others. More relaxed. More peaceful. More confident. Closer to my graduation date.

I am taking an assessment course. This course deals with measuring things, generally people and relationships. One of our assignments is to create a new measure of something.

I am challenging myself to create a theoretically-based, clinically useful, reliable, valid measure which (drumroll please) does not require the respondent to be literate or be quantitatively oriented.

Theoretically-based means there is a theory backing up this development of this measure.

Clinically useful means that a therapist could use it with a client every session, it tells something clinically relevant about the client's situation, shows progress from session to session, is easy to interpret, and takes up very little time.

Reliable means that it measures the same time after time.

Valid means that it measures what it clams to measure - it's accurate.

Does not require literacy means that the repsondent does not need to know how to read or write in order to complete the assessment.

Does not require quantitative orientation means that the person does not need to understand scales from 1 to 5 or 1 to 7 or whatever.

Think I can do it?

Emergent Church of Christ

Check out the new Facebook Group - Emergent Church of Christ. This could prove to be interesting for the Church of Christ and for the Restoration Movement in general.

Musings on Stories, Truth, and Belief

Besides fleeting moments of experience, do we have anything but stories? Hopes, perhaps. But aren't hopes just stories about the future? Anticipated stories? Stories under construction?

More and more I am coming to understand life as a story. We anticipate (rarely accurately) the story to come, we live the story, and then we have it to tell forever - if we desire to. Our collection of stories are ripe with meaning and serve to construct our identites. We collaborte with our social and ecological environment in order to highlight or obscure certain stories or stories with certain themes. Repeated highlighting or obscuring over time tends to form belief - perceived truth.

Without some kind of agency or effort, we may become slaves to our stories or the stories our surroundings keep highlighting. In order to be healthy we must not only retain authorship of our stories, we must highlight and obscure our stories with honesty and authenticity. We must not lie.

So much of what we call truth is belief. So much of life is about belief. There is TRUTH, but it is reserved for the Divine, or perhaps is the Divine.

Celebrating anniversary #12 - grateful

Gail and I celebrated our 12th anniversary this weekend. It was so good. I have had the privilege to be with an incredible woman for a dozen years.

Were life fair and just, I would have traveled a different path - probably alone. But Life for me has not been fair. Rather, life seems to have tipped in my favor in so many ways. I am a man who reaps harvests from fields I have not planted. I get to view the world by standing on other's shoulders - people who have generously given me their shoulders. And I get to be with a woman who makes me a better man.

I am grateful.

Camping

I am going to camp. I will be gone for a week. I like it.

The Shack

I am just now reading the "all the rage" book called The Shack. It is very good. I am not done with it yet, but I have to say that it looks like I am going to like it all the way through.

So far I can say that it is a redemptive and loving confrontation of human solutions and perspective. It challenges some of the most cherished loyalties humans cling to, especially religious people, and yet does it in an engaging and contagious manner. The novel reveals a patience, no, an anticipation of transformation that defines hope.

I might be off because I am not yet done reading it, but I do believe that it is worth the time to read.

It is very quick read, even for a slow reader like me. If you ahve not read it already, end out your summer with The Shack.

Lightning strikes

This one was just a little too close for comfort.

We're safe.

Fun Family Weekend

Today we slept in, went fishing (skunked), swam at Crystal Lake (not the one from Friday the 13th), and then hit the gathering at Solomon's Porch where I was the representative for Churches of Christ in speaking about the many traditions present at the Porch. It was a good day.

Yesterday we slept in, unpacked more boxes, went to the Burnsville International Festival, and watched movie. It was a good day.

Put those two good days together and it was a good weekend.